NBA: 6 biggest risers and fallers entering the 2019-20 season

Jayson Tatum – Boston Celtics

Tatum is still really young and is on a great contract, so he’s a much different case than Wall and Paul. He still makes the list though just because of the steep drop off in what we thought of him last summer versus what we think of him right now.

In the 2018 playoffs, Tatum was a major piece on a team that went to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals and there was talk about him having top 5 potential. He was arguably the most valuable young player in basketball and was viewed as a future superstar.

Evaluating him now after a Celtics season that failed to reach expectations, and I’m left wanting more from him. Tatum is still a good player and has a lot of potential, no question about it. He needs that potential to shine through this coming year though.

In 2019, Tatum saw a drop off in nearly every advanced metric, and was a much more inefficient scorer as a whole compared to his rookie season. He is a prime example of how fast opinions of players change in the NBA despite how young you are or how great you’ve been in the past. It might not be fair, but that’s the way it is. But now with Kyrie Irving out of town, there are no excuses for Tatum. 2020 will be the year we find out if he’s still a potential superstar or if he’s just another nice player.

This league is all about what you’ve done for me lately and every player on this list is an example of that. Whether you’re a rookie or a future hall of famer, the valuations never stop and every year is a “prove it” year in the NBA. Trying to predict the next player to rise like Siakam or to fall like John Wall is nearly impossible, if it was easy then every team would do it. The only guarantee for next season is that there are no guarantees.